


mash-up

by cykelops



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Demons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 05:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13264476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cykelops/pseuds/cykelops
Summary: Pietro and Wanda investigate a presence haunting the nearby woods and Pietro meets an old friend he thought wasn't friendly anymore.





	mash-up

**Author's Note:**

> This assumes Pietro/rictor were in a relationship during xfactor 2006. An old, short piece i wrote months ago and didnt bother polishing   
>  warning!! (Spoilers) Here there be a demon and he messes w/ pietros head, he has pietros memories of julio

Pietro comes prepared to go on an adventure when he visits Wanda. There is simply no way the two of them could stand still long enough to make it an uneventful visit. When Wanda asks him to come with while she explores the nearby meadow giving off dark magical energy, he doesn’t blink twice before he agrees.    
  
"What do you think it is?" Pietro asks, hopping down from a ledge and turning to catch Wanda after she does the same. "Is there such a thing as a classification system?"   
  
Wanda laughs. "Not one I can put voice to, I 'm afraid. Some magic feels... wrong."    
  
Pietro sets her down on the ground. Nods like he understands. He follows diligently after Wanda and keeps a fast eye out for incoming danger. They tread lightly through the forest, careful to stay quiet as mice. Wanda was always better at stealth, Pietro lacks the patience to map out the path in his head and hold it for longer than it would take to run it.    
  
Wanda stops suddenly, puts a hand over his chest and cocks her head towards a sound that doesn't reach Pietro’s ear.    
  
"We should split up."  She suggests.   
  
"A horrible idea, if I've ever heard one." Pietro snorts.    
  
"Trust me, Pietro." Wanda takes the satchel he's been carrying for her. She straps it over her shoulder and sticks her hand inside to check blindly that everything is where it's supposed to be. "There's a presence here, and whatever it is it won't show itself if we outnumber them."    
  
She claps him on the shoulder. "Stay here, brother. I’ll return promptly." 

  
Pietro crosses his arms over his chest and watches her retreating back, displeased. His feet stay welded to the grass below. 

  
He seeks out every discernible distraction. Pietro counts every blade of grass within a 5 feet radius, discusses with himself whether he should count at the roots or wherever the blade tips. Some bases split into two tips, it is of legitimate concern. He closes his eyes and hunts birds on sound alone. He catches and releases three finches before he bores and drops spread eagle onto a patch of grass. Pietro turns his head and a daisy tickles his nose. He missed crushing her by a few centimeters.    
  
"Nature is something else, huh?"    
  
Pietro stiffens and sits up faster than a blink. Rictor lifts his arms defensively and takes a step back.    
  
"Hey, hey. It’s just me." He says.    
  
It is. Pietro hasn't seen him in so very long. He recognizes that red shirt, the leather jacket. _Fine leather, Pie. Long lasting._ Even the ratty jeans with the torn belt loop sitting over his left pocket. His skin shines like water under the sun and there is so much _light_ around him it looks damn close to artificial. 

“Rictor.” Pietro says. The name dries his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Should be asking you that.” Rictor puffs out his chest. “You're in my turf.”

“We're miles from New York.” He squints. “You come all the way here to find nature?”

Rictor shrugs. “Nowhere near as dense as this in the big city.”

He tentatively steps forward. Pietro follows his movements and his back muscles tighten. By the time Rictor is standing in front of him, Pietro's heart has lodged in his throat. 

“Rictor, I--” He starts, ducking his head in shame. His feelings are tugged up to the surface like notes out of plucked strings. “I'm sorry I haven't--.”

Rictor kneels beside him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, hey. None of that.”

“You're not… You're not angry?”

Rictor shakes his head. The lines of his face are soft, echoes of the boy he was before the war. 

“It's been a long time, Pietro.”

Pietro looks at the hand on his shoulder and thinks. It doesn't feel like a long time. His sister and him still live with the ramifications of then. The last time he saw Rictor, his hard set eyes hinted that he would find no forgiveness there. 

But Pietro finds nothing but comfort in his eyes now. There are more flecks of gold in them than he remembers, like two pieces of that hard candy that made Julio’s mouth taste like butterscotch. He lifts a hand and for a moment Pietro believes he's going to use his powers. Instead, his fingers trail over the center of his chest, pressing over the seams of his collar. 

“Pietro, I just want to talk and worry about the consequences later.” Julio says after he's been quiet for a time. “Can you give me that?”

“Yes.” Pietro answers quickly. He meant to ask something but his eyes catch on Julio’s full lips. They used to be cracked and bitten. Pietro had bought him a chapstick of a flavor he hated to keep him from tearing at them. They're smooth and unblemished now. Did the habit stick? Pietro will take any good he did for him during the war as relief. Pietro touches his fingers to the small dip above his chin. Julio was often too distracted by what he felt to care about how he looked, especially when it came to shaving. There's no scruff tickling his fingers now. So much has changed. 

“How is work?” He makes conversation. 

“Doing alright. The team is split straight down the middle.”

“I thought X-Factor had disbanded?”

“Yeah. Then it was just me and Star.”

“You're both still together, I presume.” It's a dangerous thing to say. Even more so when Rictor’s eyes fall. 

“Yeah.” 

Pietro tilts his head back up by his chin. “What's wrong?” 

Julio sighs deeply. “I don't want to talk about him.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Us.”

He moves Pietro's hand away. He leans in close, close enough to touch his nose to the side of his face. 

“Julio, what are you doing?”

“I like it when you call me Julio. I don't know. It sounds right.” 

When Julio pushes him back down on the grass he goes easily. He feels lighter on his lap than he's meant to be.

“You like being on top.” He tests. 

Julio laughs quietly. “Never gonna get used to the weight of you.” 

Pietro finds himself transfixed by the triangle of skin exposed by his v neck. He follows the curve of his bare biceps as Julio shifts with his hands resting on Pietro’s pecs. There's a familiarity between them he'd thought lost, ripped open and scarred over. Memories long repressed flow together to form a tighter picture. He remembered Rictor, could never hope to forget him, but the finer details of their shared experience had been lost in the mist. 

He remembers, distinctly, climbing to the hospital roof to find him, calling him away from the ledge, his efforts to speak to him silenced with a kiss. 

“Julio, don't lean so far off the edge. You might fall.”

“I would only be so lucky.” That  _ thing  _ wearing Rictor’s face answers automatically with words pried out of echoes. It seems surprised by its own mistake, and its face contracts into a wry smile. Its voice is layered next time it speaks. “Oh. You're a clever one, aren't you. Figured it out all on your own?”

His voice was wrong. Every sentence off tone, some entirely fabricated from clipped words, a square block forced through a round opening. It wasn't hard to catch up on the fact that everything out of this Rictor’s mouth Pietro had heard once before. 

“Rictor would never do this.” Pietro digs his nails into its forearms. Its been draining energy out of him at every point of contact. He can barely move. 

“Sleep with you again or forgive you?” It asks, amused. “Your memories weren't clear. Almost like you wanted to forget the way you could anticipate what he felt. Use it against him.” 

“Shut up.” Pietro grits out. His eyes are the only thing he can move frantically, searching for Wanda. 

“What gave it away? How happy he looked? How healthy and taken care of? Do you only like your boy broken?” 

“Shut  _ up _ .” 

Pietro clenches his eyes shut. He can feel its breath on his face, its hands kneading at his flesh. 

“Pietro.” Julio says softly. “Pietro. Look at me.”

He opens his eyes and finds  _ scruff _ . The marks dark as bruises under Julio’s eyes. His hair undone. His lower lip split down the middle where he chronically worried it with his teeth. He remembers him as he sat in his office, District X Medical Center, second floor, fourth door down, rubbed at the faded cushions on the sofa, coffee and cream eyes holding his own steadily, and noted it was a pullout. 

“I need you, Pietro.” It says, warped voice struggling to match wavelengths Rictor never hit. 

Pietro feels the last remnants of his strength go with the sound it tears out of him. 

Something sharp like and arrow zips through the air and pierces the monster on his lap through the throat. It reaches for the wound, wraps its fingers around the shaft of light. It stopped being Rictor the moment Wanda’s magic hit the nape of its neck, so Pietro is not forced to watch the boy but the thing claw at its own throat and screech one last time before it bursts into flecks of red. 

His hands are shaking and reaching at the empty space in front of him when Wanda drops beside him. 

“I didn't think it'd come for you. Those things feed off emotion.” He hears her say, among other things. She cradles his head in her lap and pets through his sweat soaked hair. Distressed, Wanda repeats. “I didn't think it'd come for you.” 

Pietro shushes her when he comes to and every time she apologizes he forgives her. He shares details of the encounter with her so she won't feel dismissed. He admits to fear so she'll hug him, bury her head against his neck and not catch the hysterical smile that bubbles up to his face. 

He's been waiting for punishment to come for years. That did the trick, he thinks. 


End file.
